63 Comments

I don't know how old Highlander is but I know that in my lifetime, I've seen such a tremendous decline in job availability due to technology but jobs aren't the only loss we suffer- our cognitive skills are in serious decline and we lack necessary critical thinking that is required on ALL jobs and in everyone's personal lives.

Even in my line of work, microbiology and ecology, technicians are being replaced with machines. What bothers me is that the technology rarely increases efficiency, accuracy or productivity and in many cases leads to wasted time, fatal errors and really flawed science as well as driving up the cost of medical research that gets passed down to the consumer. The number of fatal medical errors due to technology is alarming and many doctors spend more time trying to learn how to interpret data and use the machines than with their patients. In the early eighties, I worked in pathology in a hospital and I prepared and screened my own specimen slides. I spent no less than 10 minutes on reading a slide and only charged the doctors about 3.00 per slide. I was extremely thorough and if I had any doubt about the integrity of the sample, I immediately called the doctor and requested another. Today, slides are either screened by mega-fancy scopes or in high production sweatshop labs where technicians are paid pennies per slide and yet, doctors are charging hundreds more for pap smears. The quality control is so bad that it's really just a coin toss as to whether your expensive test result will be accurate. Is it any wonder why so many cervical and other cancers are missed? But, the gov't and medical community would rather just vaccinate everyone so that they don't have to do their jobs but still recommend the same tests, at higher costs with less quality.

Let's also consider the high costs associated with maintaining our tools and time lost due to malfunction. Prior to 1999, I was a much more productive human than I am today. I also had more brain power and although I completed most tasks myself, I was able to accomplish so much more in a day. Most of my time today is interrupted by meaningless techie chatter and glitches. I purchased a car last Feb and I still need to refer to the manual. I don't need hundreds of bells and whistles to get from point A to B. I just wanted a radio but they just had to add a bunch of annoying cheap application clutter shit that no one should be using while driving anyway. Car alarms? They should be banned. They are one of the most inefficient technologies that adds to serious noise pollution. My friend has one of those personal alarm systems that she carries in her purse. One day it accidentally got activated and she didn't know how to turn it off. She and her other friend were standing in their apt building in the hall for ten minutes with this alarm sounding off and not a single person stepped outside to check and see if she was alright.

Remember Air France flight 447 that crashed in the Atlantic? That accident could have been avoided if the pilots were flying the plane or if they were trained to constantly supervise and regulate the auto-pilot. Apparently, they were not and the airlines were attempting to save money with this technology. The cost was even greater in the end..the costs of conducting searches and investigations, the cost of lawsuits, the cost of human lives. It would have been cheaper to train the pilot to be a pilot.

Boeing's Dreamliner...one of the most expensive outsourcing disasters since day one that will ultimately get passed on to the consumer. They outsource to save money and end up with faulty bolts that don't fit, pieces of the plane that don't fit together, leaking fuel lines, injured passengers and meanwhile the engineers and technicians are still getting paid hefty salaries bonuses to sit around and wait for replacement parts that may fit but are probably still shoddy and cheap. Everything looks pretty on the outside because we are a culture that screams, ' IMAGE IS EVERYTHING!!!" but where's the quality and critical thinking?

The worst part of outsourcing is that it doesn't save the consumer any money. We are paying outrageous prices for cheap shoddy goods.
It's immoral.

Good Post. So it seems that laboratories have also joined other industries in buying expensive equipment and passing the expenses and risk on to either consumer, insurance, or government.

I've written some about how I think we could create Mid Tier College/Universities ... and Mid Tier Medical Care/Hospital Care.

Without Caps on Tuition, Caps on Equipment purchases, Caps on Facility Expansion, Caps on Executive Salaries ... in Mid Tier Insitutions to provide for the Middle Class or Lower Class .... then we will all be priced out of the current education and medical systems.

Price Controls would mandate open books, examination of administrative costs, public audits, and community participation in managment of our Insitutuions.

Price Controls would also force us all to debate and examine as a nation what institutions we want to keep from becoming oligopolies and huge centralized TBTF corporations. Another issue that comes to mind besides big drug companies, big medical corporations, .... is the food industry and the use of federal regultory agencies to shut down small farms, organic farms, and even raw milk farmers .... small decentralized grass roots level farming is not only about freedom, .... but it is safer for the food distribution systems.

Robotic Autopilots has a very dark side on the internet. There seems to be reports of Pilot loss of control of aircraft a few years before the planes crashed into World Trade Center and Pentagon.

Small farms take such a beating but we need to support them and many will sell you raw milk under the table if you ask and pay cash. If we could all just use cash with mom and pop stores we could really make positive changes in how we treat each other, trust each other and help each other succeed.

Yes, a lot of professional laboratories ( not including academia) are using machines vs. people. The problem though is that there should always be a skilled human who can maintain quality assurance and control and make sure the equip is working properly and can interpret results within the context of other factors and conditions instead of just at face value. I'm always reminded of the driver's ed program that I endured in HS. I say, ' endured' because it was one of the most intensive experimental programs ever and this state has been monitoring us/students for years. Anyway, we had to not only study traffic driving but we had an intensive on defensive driving AND we had to know the mechanics of our engines (and how to maintain them) and other components and how they worked so that we could detect a problem that could ultimately lead to an accident or other issue. We even had to change a tire in under 2 minutes! It was one of the best courses I've ever taken and I'm an excellent driver as a result. People today are sort of crippled and helpless when it comes to commonsense and how things work. I guess this is how so many service companies get away with screwing people. If we get flat tires, we just dial 411 or something..hahahhaha But what if you're out in timbuktoo?

Mid Tier would be the affordable institions that we in the middle class use. There really are hospitals that are for the wealthy class. Like the Mayo Clinic. But if hospitals are pushed by interest groups or executives with conflict of interest (financial interests) they will drive us poor people out of the system.

The system doesn't care if you go bancrupt after a major medical event. But even if you have health care insurance, you have some choices about where to go for medical care. I just think we should designate certain hospitals as Mid-Tier for the Middle Class or Poor and install cost controls and price controls.

Unfortuneatly I don't have much experience with hospitals or health care. But I have untreated issues now that I don't want to pay a specialist to examine.

All of these above issues may fall under Financial Schemes. Some financial schemes like insurance have some acceptance and offer a good basic value. Some financial schemes drain money from the system or from consumers ... like pay check loan services. Capitalism is full of fiancial schemes like corporate welfare and defense contractor lobbying... War is a racket. Being a congressman is a racket. Lobbying is a Racket. Taking corporate headquarters off shore is a racket. Rich earners not paying social security for all income earned in a year is a racket.

Hospitals replacing equipment, buying new equipment every year, and expanding facilities seems to drive up costs for medical services as well as ... driving up executive salaries and compensation packages.

oh and PS.....thanks to obamyoucare, the insurance companies have already begun slashing benefits while still increasing premiums. I don't know what Obama was thinking but I know he's fully aware of the insurance company schemes because he mentioned this. yet, he has allowed them to continue to raise premiums more than 40 percent in the last 4 years and slash benefits/coverage. Thank goodness he only gave them 5 years to screw us to the wall otherwise, we might be paying for zero benefits ;(

I see but don't you believe that all humans should receive the same quality of care? I do and I fear that a mid tier would equate with less care, less quality. We have enough discrimination in the medical industry as it is. We need to get rid of the for-profit medical industry. I think doctors would be a lot happier with more autonomy as well.

Do you have a local med school near you? If so, contact them about exams and treatments. They are very discounted and often provide more thorough service. Also, check to see which hospitals in your area are non-profit. You might be surprised at how many are and they are more willing to help without bankrupting you.

There are also local health and dental clinics in regional areas.

Schemes and more schemes. It's always something isn't it? Just turn on the TV and get a good dose of every trendy scheme out there. This is the reason that we don't trust each other. We, the people, need to become worthy of each other's trust again.

Thanks. Well, we already have multi level health care from what I can gather. I mean I have limited experience. I know wealthy from Canada or another country might come here to the USA. Oh, yes maybe that is the other way to go, social health care. Of course, Social Health care would have to have cost controls and price controls.

We have social education K-12, social security, Medicare for the elderly and ill, Medicaid for others, Congress has social medicine, if you retired from the military you get social medicine, some people ahve gotten social education like Vietnam Era veterans and their kids (Montgomery Bill), ...all I know is wealthy people hate social programs and want to take them away (remember Mitt Romney speak to the 1% about the 47%).

1) Today Univesity Student with Student Loans risk Bancrupcy if they graduate since many are like in the $100K range.
2) Biggest Risk to Bancrupcy is Major Medical Event.
3) Start your own business risk is to be target of big corporation which may get federal agents to charge you, regulate you, or they will sue you for some infringement or intellectual property rights thing.
4) And Courts have been privatized effecitively ... since common business or common consumer can't afford to seek redress or defend himself in court.... Court Costs and Lawyers are prohibitive.

PS..wealthy people hate social programs because then they lose their elite status and image. Too many wealthy people equate wealth with success and superiority and power. Imagine if it became socially popular to be poor and ugly and those with money were considered ignorant losers who wasted their money on junk and half ass overpriced educations. hahahah

Yeah, there is nothing wrong with teaching your kids to be proud of themselves and to take pride in themselves and their family. We should learn to respect ourselves. But I think some wealthy teach that they are a higher class, teach the differences between them and lower classes, and teach some kind of separation from lower classes ... whether it is because they are luckier, whether it is because lower classes won't actually know how to deal with money or respect possessions, or that there is danger ... I don't know. I'm sure wealthy parents send signals and safety rules. Maybe it is just parental expectations .... that their kids learn to be the smartest kind of citizen infering that there are too many "Others".

Half my family was very poor and the other half somewhat elitist. I don't mean that we were snobs but there was always that need to choose friends of the ' same feather'. If I had children, I would want them to marry bluebloods, you know? Isn't that every parent's dream? hahahha
Darwin would agree I think. I was also taught that class can't be bought and that anyone, rich or poor can have class.

I guess we have some wealthy supporters of OWS and reform issues. And it is possible that some liberal parents are teaching their kids to separate from wealthy banker families or wealthy oil families.

I guess it is the Human Condition. That we will create a little elitism in our family unit. Values are so important to teach to kids. Values mean judgement and judging others. We are assumption machines and judgement machines. But we have to judge on a personal level who we will bring into our lives. I suppose families could be a little insular ...if they judge others too harshly.

Maybe OWS members should marry off their daughters to other OWS members sons????

OWS Dynasties .... families of large numbers of children all raised up to reform government & Corporations.

hahaha......OWS Dynasties sounds right on! Maybe I could join too as Lady G. Maybe I could find my next husband on here and he might have 16 grandkids and then I could be Madame Granny G. hahahah

I was thinking more deeply about your idea of middle class services and schools. Do you think that people would be willing to work for less pay to do the same thing as the more expensive hospitals and schools? My cynical mind tells me no. However, your idea could work in a sustainable community of middle class that have their own school, own hospital, doctor, lawyer, etc..

Well in general people don't like to work for less wages, but if they had less beds to cover at a hospital it could be quantified to less responsibility if it is a simpler hospital or clinic. I guess we get a lot of Filipino Nurses these days to fill vacant slots and they might start out at some of the lower wages to see if they fit in and see if they communicate well with staff...

I'm not the one to ask about medical wages or facility structures. I'm guessing nurses at a physicians office might make less than many nurses, then maybe clinics make more than them with more responsibilities to attend deeper surgeries,... But wages could be at parity in a Mid Tier Hospital if forms are keep standard and simple and automation is simple, don't upgrade automation for over 3 years, keep equipment basic, keep equipment maintenance and leasing costs down, don't try to be the most advanced clinic, delay upgrades to beds, keep remodeling within reason, prioritize reinvestments around teh hospital, simplify grounds costs, keep outside maintenance costs low, keep roof maintenance low, .....cost control.

Small towns probably keep costs down already. It is more of a transfer of small town medical model to bigger hospitals or clinics.

OWS Commune Dynasties? If G cant sew it up, we'll run you down to the clinic. How about inter-marrying OWS Commune Dynasties?

Oh yes, soon enough we could have our own reality show which would pay us very well.

I suppose you could examine the medical model in Appalachia and see how it works, how it's lacking and such. I would be glad to work for less if I had a roof over my head and a community of love and peace around me. No neighbors like the ones I have now though.

Keeping it simple is what it's all about. If someone needs a tooth pulled, we can just grab the whiskey bottle and a string. Well,Ok, forget the string...I'll offer my nicest pair of forceps ( usually reserved for sterilizing some of the human population).

Fri, 07/27/2012 - 09:10 — Patch
Wow! I was recently sent a couple articles about two doctors who are the representatives of a medical profession dedicated to caring for people. What I don't understand is why they have not been on the cover of every newspaper as giants in American medicine. I had to hear about the amazing Dr. Leila Denmark from the British medical journal Lancet and Dr. Dohner from People Magazine. For several years we have heard the politicians and pundits argue for and against Obamacare and the curse of "socialized medicine", but it is simply inexcusable that we do not take care of all our citizens, equally and gleefully. Please do not think that the global garbage that passes for healthcare delivery today in the US has anything to do with health or care or delivery. Dr. Denmark and Dr. Dohner are real doctors – shout their stories! Please read these pieces. It is about the thrills, joys and rewards of the real practice of medicine. Yum!

G, you're talking about the poorest people in the USA in Appalachia. I'm thinking the model in appalachia is a little too poor. But, I haven't been there. I used to see some flyer info for Christian Charities working in Applachia... Seems like volunteers giving sweat equity.

Lot of People from West Virginia moved into the Ohio area like around 2000 for sure looking for work. I'd guess many people migrate or mobilize to get out of Applachia to find work through out each year. Hm... old mining country West Virginia.

Yeah, I know. It's so ironic that we have so many social programs and yet, so many fear anything that sounds like ' socialism'. I think it stems from the cold war days. I remember that my gov't teacher wasn't allowed to teach us about communism or socialism ( but she did anyway..hahaha)

People travel to other countries all the time for medical care but it's not just because one system is better than the other. I think many just have connections or perhaps family or other reasons for pursuing care outside of their home country. We also see the grass as greener elsewhere too.

I know that we are told that medical costs cause bankruptcy and I'm sure in some cases it does happen but let's just relax for a moment and ask ourselves...is filing bankruptcy as bad as it sounds? I don't think it's got the stigma or the negative credit impact that it once did years ago. It's the big corps that fear us going bankrupt and why Obama cowtows to their every wince. They don't want to settle for less. Frankly, if all of us went bankrupt, like the big corps do, then maybe the system will become less greedy and we'd have a truly fair market.

Did you know that most of the people filing for medical related bankruptcy had insurance? For middle class Americans, health insurance offers very little protection. It's really just a scam when you really examine who much you spend on insurance, copays, deductibles, etc.. In many cases the insurer cancelled on them or there were so many loopholes that they didn't get coverage. So, in reality, unless you are filthy rich, you can probably bet that bankruptcy is a fact of life whether you have insurance or not.

I've never filed bankruptcy but I know many who have. It blows my mind...lawyers, doctors, accountants. The odd thing is that only a few days after settling, they are right back to life as usual, spending as usual. It's so strange.

Business bancrupcy is different from personal bancrupcy from what I hear. And there are different kind of bancrupcy chapters, chapter 11, chapter 15,.... Anyway when a business goes bankrupt you get to keep you house and car and all your personal stuff if I heard it right. There is a trick too. The more debt a judge allows you to dissolve or write off the cleaner the slate. The judge may force you to keep some debt that you are still able to service or pay off at your current employment level.

I'm thinking a personal bancrupcy is still bad since they have tightened up the laws back in like 1999/2000 and have heard that they go after you on student loans. Anyway seems like the banks knew that financial crashes were going to come back, so they tightened up the personal bancrupcy laws way back.

Yeah, can't say socialism. It goes back to before the communist revolution. French writers were talking about socialism like in the 19th century, then later you got Marx. Czarist Russia was a mess and think writers started looking to social revolutions. Anyway, by early 20th century there was a buzz about communism. US Politicians were disturbed by this, but think the biggest influence was being seen in Europe. Franco in Spain was threated by Communism in a multi year war. Germany was depressed after losing in the Treaty of Versaille (WWI) and they had communist party supporters. Then I think there was strong communist interest in the US in Chicago and ... there was a lot of fear about the Wobblies which were World International Workers Rights, union rights. I think the Wobblies were outlawed in the USA after some riots, striker breakers, police injuries.... Remember the Red Scares where people informed on each other for being communist. They say Ronald Reagan turned informant for the FBI at some point. A lot of Hollywood actors got Blacklisted. I think McCarthism came later in the 1950s unless I'm mixed up and it was just politically motivated (kind of like the war on terror today).

Oh, yeah, I knew that most people filing for medical bankrupcy had insurance. I guess it is like you pay a little each month to avoid getting hit all at once with medical bills over $100K. But the top limit of insurce is not that high, so major events will nail you.

Upshot is Banks don't want to let you off the hook when you file personal bancrucy. They will tell the judge you need to pay off the debts and they want the debt to stay on you.

I was talking about personal bankruptcy when I mentioned lawyers, doctors and accountants. There are some things that can't be written off..like taxes or school loans. Anything you owe the gov't can't be written off from what I know. However, even though big corps and banks don't want you to file, they will be forced to settle for a lesser amount so it's really not a bad deal. Despite the bankruptcy laws, many are still filing and still able to lead relatively normal lives. I thought it would be more difficult but apparently not.
I was raised that it was only people with bad character that file but that's just not true.

Thanks. You know a lot of stuff. I don't really know people that have gone the bankrupcy route. Yeah, I was raised that way too. I'm starting to feel a little rigid, but after hearing some from you ... well it is just another thing I don't know about. I might do it if I had to ...If it is something that would allow me to get medical treatment for instance.... you never know.

I lived through this in the video field. Back in the 90's a home business had to buy 10,000 to 15,000 dollar video machines to do high quality tape to tape editing.

Video cameras, the kind that went on the shoulder, sold from around 7,500 to 15,000 dollars.

Both of these types of gear had experienced a massive price reduction from the late 80's in which equipment cost 40 to 50 grand for each piece.

The 90's were the time of hybrid, actual knobs and dials on the outside of a device, complemented by just a few menu options.

Corporations realized they could drop the price of their products significantly if they went away from real knobs and dials and went with every option on a menu instead..

Real intelligence does not work strictly off of menus. The ability to observe where knobs and dials are set while at the same time monitoring the actual video levels and the editing being done was a magical time.

I learned so much from that decade of editing and camera work and think that even though camera and editing "assistance" technology continues to improve, the ability to integrate thought and observation has been compromised.

There are basic knob and dial functionalities that should never be put on a menu. MaC went through 8 or 9 final cut pro editing versions until they dumbed down / simplified automated the whole process, causing some who had been staunch supporters to learn different editing systems so they could continue to offer editing services to their clients.

As products become more and more menu and app driven with no physical external interfaces, the ability for the app and menu to take away their functions at a moments notice increases, which can obliterate a company's way of doing things in an instant.

I can completely relate. I am an amateur photographer and I still use my very old cameras for the best photos but it requires knowledge and skill to do so. I also have a digital SLR and as much as I love the ease of it, it requires no skill. A few friends of mine who are photographers had businesses that barely exist today.

I can't even find a camera shop - much less, one with employees that know anything about my cameras. I took my old twin reflex camera to a family owned shop and the owner was rude and arrogant, refused to work on it as it was a waste of time, so he said. Then he tried to sell me a new camera.

Speaking of tools...I still use my grandfather's garden and other tools that are almost one hundred years old and they never bend, never crack, never break.

Do they teach photography in colleges anymore?

Yesterday I saw an advertisement for a show called Redrum. you might know that RedruM was a Stephen King original from The Shining ( murder spelled backwards). It really annoyed me that someone got paid to come up with that unoriginal title.

lol, that' s because everything is backwards today (redrum). I put a coat of glue on my father's old shovel and it works better than the newer ones. Some of the newer shovels have too sharp upper flanges, (the part that rests against the foot when pushing down) and it can be painful to push down too hard, so I fixed dad's shovel instead by sanding it and then coating it with glue.

Digital cameras are learning tools, however, the ratio of total pictures taken to pictures that are used is vastly inefficient to the way in which photographs are taken with film.

Both have value. Those who can shoot with film should make better digital photographers than those who just shoot digitally.

The good paying jobs are gone and they're not coming back under this system of corporatism. What hasn't been outsourced to foreign labor will slowly or even quickly be turned into part time work so they don't have to pay benefits and further create a desperate work force willing to work for less under an employers market. That's right, they're coming for the full time jobs next. Along with stagnant wages you will slowly get pushed closer to the poverty line, or if you're already there, even further below the poverty line due to inflation.

Should have added robots too. Mechanized manufacturing has replaced many jobs already.

Yep - sick trends - just what the hell kind of market are corpoRATions looking to make in this country? The robots will not be shopping. Ahhhh yes but it does fit in with their program of treating people like another sacrifice zone.

They think removing consumers from our consumer based economy is a good idea... and that is beyond mad. It will allow them profits, but only for so long. Eventually they will bring the entire economy to a crash... again but worse. This is why we need to ditch the banks and our current monetary policy, like I mentioned in my newest post - They Should Have Let the Banks Fail.

This is all the more reason that we need a new economy, one that focuses on human beings or as Charles Eisenstein puts it a "sacred economy." This new economy would be a "gift" economy, not a "money" economy. Therefore, everyone would have enough, because sharing would be the name of the game. Robots probably wouldn't be much of a problem in a gift economy because all people would be sharing in the wealth of resources of the earth.

Excellent point about a gift economy versus a money economy. Robotics economy means consumer debt must be reduced by suspending interest rate charges, penalties and fees for those committed to paying down their consumer debt.

Reduced consumer debt would allow consumers to work less hours to pay for their overall monthly overhead and also have money left over to help regenerate their own local economy as well.

The problem is "Too big to fail" is really a smokescreen for "Too big to shrink".

If Consumer debt decreases, it would mean that the banks were shrinking, but that would be reported as bank losses and would have a negative effect on the "economy" as reported by the uneducated media which is simply following the meme's of the past 50 years.

So that's why they wont raise the minimum wage. If people could actually save money instead of paying off debt, the banks would bust. That is a very interesting perspective. The banking industry must perpetuate debt or it goes out of business.

The implications are startling and gives even more credence to Occupy's grievances.

Ironically, lowering home mortgage interest rates, while generally a good thing, acts as a barrier against reducing credit card debt. Locking people into mortgages they can barely afford just ensures they will never pay down their credit card debt, which is where the REAL money is being made by the banks and the rich elite.

I don't have the numbers but I am estimating that banks may be making more money every month from credit card debt than from mortgage payments, so lowering the interest rates on mortgages, while helping many who are struggling, are struggling because of their credit card debt and super high interest rate charges.

My explanation is uncomplicated, but I think it is accurate. Media smokescreens are going up all the time to keep people looking away from consumer debt.

The three main tiers of consumer debt not counting mortgages are credit card debt, auto loan debt, and student loan debt. All the focus on the student loan debt has cause virtually no focus to go to credit card debt, and that makes the rich elite and the government very happy.

I agree. Consumer debt is the biggie, the one with the most usury of interest rates. The only change Obama made is that now it is clearly stated on your statement each month exactly how long (usually upwards of 30/40 years) it will take you to pay off your debt.

I actually made a similar suggestion to their panel during the consumer input stage for the credit card reform bill act. I sent them a link to www.credit-card-cap.com which mentions over and over the problem with only a 2% monthly minimum payment. Never did get any response one way or the other.

This is what I wrote back in late 2007 and then rewrote in early 2008, well over a year before the Act was finalized.

............."In many cases the issue is not the actual credit card debt, it's the non-disclosure about what the true payoff date is, what the credit card interest rate really is when one makes only the monthly minimum payment, the late fees, the raising of the interest rates if the customer is dinged with a bad report from any financial institution, and Credit Protector charges that has accelerated the problem. ".......... end quote.

If the American people realized, before they consumed, exactly how much that new sofa, or pair of shoes, or video game was going to cost them on revolving credit card debt, they might think twice. Then, they might get out in the street to fight for a living wage so that they could afford to live decently without going into debt. Low wages and debt are all connected. This is exactly how TPTB want it.

Good for you for getting involved in an issue that so many people simply do not understand.

I also wrote another website called www.credit-protector.com back in 2007 and 2008 that exposed what was probably the biggest fraud against american consumers over the past 15-20 years.

Credit-Protector credit card insurance was making sooooo much fraudulent profit for the credit card companies that when the Consumer Protection financial bureau went after this program in the summer of 2012, it was because the credit card companies were going after their customers too aggressively to sign up for this program.

If I decide to go ahead with my documentary, Credit Card protector insurance will be one of the points I cover. The Credit Card protector insurance program was such a huge scam that if all the collateral damage caused by that program was factored in, we could be looking at a trillion dollars worth of fraudulent losses to main street over the past 15 to 20 years.

Sounds like a very worthy documentary. I don't know of any that have focused solely on credit card consumer debt. And, as you know, it is one of the biggest rip-offs of the American people and is highly connected to the low and declining wages of the last 30/40 years. There is a big story to tell in credit card debt.

That is just the thing it is not an immediate concern so is disregarded - until you get the bill anyway and the bill and the bill and the bill and the bill and the new purchase reflected onto the new bill and the following bill and the next bill and the next.........................................

Libor scandle? well we are kinda dealing with distractions at the moment.

And, those old purchases just fall off the bill while the dollar amount is still there and then some, in aggregate, but you don't realize it, because it no longer says how much each item is now costing you. The very next month after you make your purchase you can no longer track the cost of that item.

I get a little tired of the complaint about modern technology and innovations taking away jobs from "the people". As the decades go by, innovations come and society adapts and the work environment adapts.

Bam-the surprise of paying close to what they pay the Chinese found in a $22,000 robot that lasts 3 years. Ya. Doesn't explain why the nurses were on strike. Doesn't explain why they have people that they pay minimum wage to locate a vein in your arm and fail. Instead we are going to focus on robotics.

I feel the same way that I did when they came out with ..........if you didn't drive an SUV then we wouldn't have had to go to war in Iraq. Never mind that I don't drive an SUV.